An Organizational Memory Approach to Information Management

Abstract

We extend and adapt a model of group memory to organizations. Using this extended model, they identify information management challenges of the next century and suggest that organizations can address these challenges by locating a large portion of their information-processing activities outside their formal boundaries, by adopting novel socialization tactics, and by focusing on the management of soft knowledge forms (e.g., tacit knowledge, judgment, and intuitive abilities). Whereas current theories increasingly equate information management with the management of information technology, we argue that information technology needs to be complemented by organization-level processes related to organizational memory.